Swiss police confirm identity of couple found on glacier

Geneva (AFP) – DNA tests have established that the remains found on a receding glacier last week in the Swiss Alps were of a couple that disappeared 75 years ago, police said Wednesday.

“The remains recovered on the glacier have been formally identified,” police in Switzerland’s Valais canton said in a statement.

“They are of Mr. Marcelin Dumoulin and his wife Francine Dumoulin, who disappeared tragically on August 15, 1942.”

The couple had left their home in the village of Chandolin that morning hoping to check in on their cattle, which were being kept in an alpine pasture in neighbouring Bern canton.

The fastest route at the time was via a glacier footpath. The sky was clear when the couple set out, but clouds later worsened visibility and the couple vanished, likely after falling into a crevasse, orphaning five sons and two daughters.

They were discovered last Thursday — preserved in the Tsanfleuron glacier at an altitude of 2,600 metres (8,500 feet) — by an employee of a local ski resort.

Backpacks, a watch and other personal belongings had been preserved in the ice nearby.

One of their surviving children, Monique Gautschy, told AFP that police called to inform her of the definitive identification early on Wednesday.

Relatives have said that the discovery would finally give them a chance for closure and to organise the funeral that the Dumoulins never received.

That funeral will happen Saturday, Gautschy said, adding that she “would love to see them before then, just to embrace them.”